Eight things we learned from Alexei Sayle's Desert Island Discs
The comedian Alexei Sayle launched his career in 1979 at the tiny Comedy Store in London, along with future stars including Rik Mayall, and French and Saunders. With his tight-fitting suits and an often abrasive stage presence, Sayle became a household name with sell-out stand-up tours, appearances in TV successes such as The Young Ones and even a novelty pop hit. He later stepped away from performing, and published novels and short stories. More recently he’s returned to live stand-up and has also created a number of comedy series for Radio 4, including Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar.
Here’s what we learned from his Desert Island Discs...
1. His parents wanted him to watch Soviet cinema rather than Disney movies
Alexei Sayle’s parents were staunch members of the Communist Party in Liverpool. It was, Alexei now says, like being part of a cult and it informed every aspect of their lives – including trips to the cinema: “My mother didn't want me to go and see [Walt Disney’s] Bambi because she thought I'd be upset by it… they took me instead to see Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, which features a scene of Teutonic Knights drowning on a frozen lake in graphic detail, and several scenes of ritual child sacrifice as well.”
2. His childhood holidays involved great railway journeys
Alexei’s father, Joe, was a railway worker, which entitled the family to free train travel across Europe. In line with their political beliefs, the Sayles travelled extensively in eastern Europe, to countries that were then part of the Soviet bloc. Alexei remembers how his father used his Party connections to help them out of tricky situations. Once the family were having a miserable time on a grim campsite in Czechoslovakia, and Joe contacted the local Communist elite: a fleet of limousines soon arrived at the campsite, and as Alexei recalls, “we were bundled into these limousines, driven to Prague and from then on we were heroes. You know, we were treated like kings.”
3. He selects a classic protest song to remind him of his mother Molly
One of Alexei’s eight discs is a song from the 1930s inspired by the life and death of the Swedish-American activist Joe Hill, written by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson. It became a campaigning anthem. Alexei recalls that it was performed at his mother’s funeral, with the opening lines changed from ‘I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night’ to ‘I dreamed I saw Molly Sayle last night, alive as you and me.’ Alexei selects Joan Baez’s recording for the island.
4. He went to art school – but didn’t get much encouragement from his teachers
After he was inspired by a talk by David Hockney, Alexei won a place at the Chelsea School of Art. Practising artists were employed to critique the students’ work, which could be an uncomfortable experience: “You just about managed to scrabble together some painting, and then this guy would come along in a leather jacket and say ‘That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.’ And then he’d say ‘I’ll see you in two months,’ and it’s really demotivating. It was sink or swim – and in the end I did swim but it was pretty cruel really.”
The arena acts, the Michael McIntyres, Jack Whitehalls and Sarah Millicans, and so on, all spring from what we did in that strip club in Soho
5. He owes his comedy career to a small advert in Private Eye magazine
Alexei’s wife Linda spotted an ad looking for comedians to open a new club. This turned out to be the Comedy Store, and on the surface it wasn’t promising. The venue was usually a topless bar, the comedy started at midnight and the audience was rarely sober – but Alexei found that his stage persona was ideal in this setting: “the thing that was needed most was somebody who was funny, but also somebody who carried this physical threat and that's what I did - it's not really me, but when I'm on stage you won't argue with me, I'm just so fearless and… I wasn't trying to ingratiate myself with the audience. The victory for me was if they disliked me, but they still laughed.” Other hopeful comedians there at the opening included Clive Anderson, now host of Radio 4’s Loose Ends.
6. He believes that today’s vast comedy industry has its roots in the Comedy Store of 40 years ago
“The arena acts, the Michael McIntyres, Jack Whitehalls and Sarah Millicans, and so on, all spring from what we did in that strip club in Soho,” Alexei says. “You know, [the industry’s] DNA all comes from that little club… it was that one racehorse that sired all the other racehorses. And it's partly just luck, but to be there then, and to be instrumental in the birth of an entire art form, or sub-set of an art-form, was a privilege that is granted to very, very few people and I'm just grateful to have been there.”
7. He sought success in the USA – and ended up with the worst kind of birthday present
Alexei remembers how he headed to Los Angeles, aiming to become a star in America, and was cast in a sequel to the highly successful series The Golden Girls. It was not a happy experience: “Subconsciously I didn't want to be there… my performances were very patchy.” And he made the mistake of attempting to impress the Golden Girls themselves with his dance moves: “I can dance a bit - if I tap dance in the UK people say ‘that’s amazing.’ But I tried to tap dance in front of the Golden Girls. Now these were three women who had been on Broadway - I cannot tell you how unpleasant [they] were about my tap dancing.” He was fired from the series on his 40th birthday.
8. California also changed his distinctive dress code
British audiences almost always saw Alexei in a tight-fitting suit – but in America he changed his image: “I turned into LA Alexei, a kind of really nice guy, wearing pastel-coloured polo shirts and chinos. I don't know who the hell he was!”
